In a gas turbine engine, the spinner or nosecone of the fan section is designed to direct local flow into the root of the fan blades. The spinner or nosecone may be designed to minimize foreign object damage, such as impact forces caused by hail and bird strikes. Additionally, the spinner or nosecone may be designed to minimize bill of material object damage, which is damage caused by components of the engine itself. Per FAA regulations, the gas turbine engine must be designed to meet given continued operation requirements after foreign object strikes to the fan, including the spinner or nosecone. Additionally, increased durability of the gas turbine engine and the spinner or nosecone itself is beneficial to the owner because the reduced wear and tear on the engine may contribute to lower repair costs and greater efficiency.
As such, a spinner of the fan section of the gas turbine engine may be designed with a support flange (e.g., a Y-flange) aft of the nose of the spinner. The support flange may transfer axial compressive forces from strikes to the spinner, transfer shear forces due to rotational acceleration and deceleration, and/or may transfer radial forces imparted due to thermal and/or centrifugal expansion. Said support flange may be located between the spinner of the fan section and a fan hub of the fan section.
Support flanges on prior fan spinners are a part of the spinner itself, wherein the spinner and support flange are fabricated as one component. Prior fan spinners may consist of a two dimensional composite laminate construction. The support flange exists on the spinner at an aft area where the laminate splits and one portion continues aft, forming the flow path to the fan platforms while another portion dives radially inboard and creates the mounting flange to the hub.
Current gas turbine engine components, such as a spinner for the fan section, may be formed by injection molding. Injection molding is an attractive means of forming components because the process may reduce the cost of production of such components. However, current injection molding tools, generally, require the tool to split into at least two pieces to release the created component. To create a spinner component by injection molding, the spinner component would be split normal to the axis of revolution. The support flanges on prior spinners consist of an overhung portion, creating a spinner having geometry that would be inherently locked onto the molding tool. The lock-on condition caused by the aft support flange would prevent a spinner with an integral support flange from being fabricated by injection molding.
To enable the use of an injection molded spinner, a need exists to fabricate a spinner component having a support comparable to the prior art integral support flange, wherein the support is not fabricated as a part of the base spinner itself, but rather, as a separate component to be bonded to the aft portion of the spinner.